Damhnait Doyle
Acclaimed singer-songwriter Damhnait Doyle (Dav-net Doyle) is set to release her brand new EP, Bird in Flames, this Friday, September 25, her first collection of new music since 2019's Liquor Store Flowers. Before that exciting day arrives, she's dropping the new video for the upcoming single "Ready Now," a warm, propulsive love song about surrendering control and allowing the body to recognize what the mind has not yet accepted.
Co-written with her dear friend, JUNO Award-winning producer Hill Kourkoutis, the pair spent more than two years refining the track, searching for a sound that felt sweet without becoming sugary. Its tension builds gradually across three choruses. Doyle begins alone, asking, “Are you ready now?” Kourkoutis joins her in a lower harmony the second time through, before a high harmony finally opens the song up in its closing chorus.
It was an emotional journey that led Doyle to this song. During the pandemic, she was forced to confront how little control she had over the world around her. In accepting that reality, she found a new freedom: the ability to move, dance and let go without self-consciousness. When she asks, “Are you ready for the stars and for your world to come apart?” she is also talking to herself. “Ready Now” is a hopeful love song, and one where Doyle is not asking to be rescued and waiting for permission. Instead, she is stepping fully into the moment, embracing uncertainty and choosing to move forward on her own terms.
What's the Story about Bird in Flames EP?
While putting together her new record, Bird in Flames, Damhnait Doyle realized she wanted the music to push her toward motion, rhythm, and action. "I want to be in my body. I don't want to be in my head," Doyle says. One might assume that the subject matter she was dealing with in her life and songwriting, grief and heartbreak, the soft chaos that arises from the upending of an established way of being, would tamp those desires down. But when a phoenix begins to burn, what could be a more natural response than to dance through the pain?
What Doyle wanted most, in the wake of a tumultuous era of her life, was to get reacquainted with her "true, weird, eccentric self," she says. "The person I was on a Thursday night in high school in St. John's." Appropriately, Bird in Flames barrels forth and pulses with the boundless energy of youth coupled with the perspective of life endured and lived fully.
Doyle didn't know if she would ever make music again, but the prospect of working with her close friend Hill Kourkoutis, who also happens to be the first woman to win the JUNO Award for Recording Engineer of the Year, was too delicious to resist. With the exception of the drums, played by Davide DiRenzo and Adam Warner, Kourkoutis played every single instrument on the EP and co-wrote four of the songs. Doyle also recruited two of her closest friends, Kim Stockwood and Serena Ryder, to co-write songs. The whole thing was a labour of love.
The EP begins with the propulsive, glowing "Ready Now," a song about being open, for the first time in some time, to risk and possibility. Doyle begins pulling the safety guards off of her heart on the rolling "Singing in My Ear," nodding to the painful process of opening oneself up again. The fiery "Bad Bad Women" follows, and over the stormy roots-rock lead single "Darlin'," she rails against the darkness in a love letter to herself, promising everything is going to be all right. Throughout the entire affair, Doyle aims for the rafters with impassioned vocal performances.
For the title-track finale, she soars over a tidal wave of sound: "Every bird who’s got a story finds a way to sing." As the music washes away, the record ends with the delicate but persistent trill of birdsong.
Born and raised in Newfoundland and Labrador, Damhnait Doyle is a well-known Canadian singer, songwriter, performer, and creator. Spanning a music career of more than three decades, she has released nine full-length recordings as both a solo artist and a member of award-winning groups Shaye and The Heartbroken. She has toured Canada extensively, opening for legends like Willie Nelson and Steve Earle and has lent her voice to numerous recordings including albums by Kevin Parent and Bruce Cockburn.
In 2020, Damhnait expanded her creative horizons yet again, guest hosting CBC’s "Weekend Mornings." In 2021, she became a full-time CBC Music Radio Host and is now the host of "Mornings."
In 2018, she became an active advocate for songwriters – serving on the board of SOCAN as well as the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. She’s also been busy writing songs for children's television – including for the popular “Thomas the Tank Engine”. In addition to her regular commercial voice acting gigs, in 2021 Damhnait voiced the character of Vala for the video game, Warframe. Damhnait also recorded “Me and The Sky” for the Covers From Away compilation – Newfoundland artists covering the songs from the hit musical of the same name.
Damhnait has travelled to both Kabul and Kandahar to perform for Canadian Forces personnel, and journeyed to Kenya to contribute to the music-focused documentary Song for Africa, a project aimed at raising awareness among Canada’s youth about the AIDS pandemic in Africa. She later returned to Rwanda to continue the initiative.
A multiple ECMA, SOCAN, and Canadian Radio Music award winner, and a multiple JUNO, CMAO and CCMA award nominee, Damhnait has written songs for numerous artists, as well as for film & television. For several years, she wrote a weekly column for Newfoundland and Labrador’s “The Evening Telegram”, and she released a book called “Miscellaneous Female”, recounting her life as a travelling musician and writer.
Website - damhnaitdoyle.com